


The Chase

by mphelmsman



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Fun, I feel NO shame, M/M, Prompt Fic, tumblr drabble, two of them against the world
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-14
Updated: 2013-12-14
Packaged: 2018-01-04 14:35:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1082156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mphelmsman/pseuds/mphelmsman
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The game is on! John helps Sherlock update his mental maps of London interactively.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Chase

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Kriskenshin for the wonderful prompt "heart racing, an overwhelming smile and a blush"

John ran through the streets of London, dodging cars, ducking through alleyways, narrowly avoiding ramming into people. This was not unusual in his life, almost an everyday occurrence really. What was different was that he was not in the shadow of his flat mate and lover and not pursuing a dangerous criminal that might quite likely turn at some point and try to kill them. Rather his lover *was* his persuer tonight and when he was caught…..well violence wasn’t really what set his heart racing right now.

It had started this morning when John awoke to find Sherlock pouring over maps of London. John hadn’t been able to stop the warm glow that filled him seeing his friend and now lover back in the sitting room of 221B where he belonged. It had been hard, terribly hard, for them both the last two years. John had mourned Sherlock sincerely after the detective had apparently jumped off of the roof of St. Bart’s. Indeed it had left him a veritable husk of a man barely able to go through the motions of living. As for Sherlock, as John finally now understood it, that leap had just been the first of a series of death defying escapades that had been performed to take down the entirety of Moriarty’s legacy across the globe.

It hadn’t helped that they couldn’t for the life of them take the easy path about anything. Instead of being overjoyed that Sherlock had carried off the miracle John had begged for at graveside, the Doctor had reacted with almost irrational anger and even more grief. Whereas Sherlock, with all the memories of what he had done and let himself become to save John, could feel nothing but betrayed when the miracle that he had brought about by sheer force of will was apparently rejected. The first meeting had been the hardest, John slamming Sherlock to the ground and then telling him to never darken his door step again. Sherlock had taken it to heart and a week later John had gotten a panicked call from Lestrade. After listening to the man’s desperate pleading he had wound up at a filthy, rat hole of a flat that had been systematically destroyed with Sherlock sitting in the middle of it insensible to outside stimuli.

Beside Sherlock’s raggedly clothed leg had been a bloodstained log of all the actions that had filled the two years after the Fall. John had read the first few pages, shuddered heavily with horror and bone wracking guilt, then pressed the book into Lestrade’s hand, getting an oath from the DI never to look into it. Then, as cautiously as he would approach a wild, wounded, animal, John sat himself down in front of his friend. He then set himself to his task of bringing the great mind back from where it had hid. It had required John to go beyond what he had been capable before the Fall, exposing his own pain to Sherlock and the great love that the pain sprang from. The reward, however, was worth any price as it opened up a font of vulnerability in the Detective that left John aghast. By the time Sherlock had been able to meet John’s eyes and recognize that it was really him the last illusions of a purely platonic relationship between them had been blown to atoms. Sherlock needed John to a frightening degree and when it came to the sticking point the former army captain could only answer with the same intensity of desire. They had walked out of the place with John’s arms firmly cradling Sherlock’s wasted body and that night he had started to put them both back together in the warmth and security of his own bedroom.

That was all behind them now but John had found that it had given him a vast array of gifts he had never even dreamed in their previous relationship. This morning, finding Sherlock irritably muttering over maps of London, trying to figure what had changed in two years; John had simply chuckled. Then snuggling up to the taller man’s back he’d said simply, “You aren’t going to find out the real stuff from maps, love. I know you; you have to be out in it.”

“Suggestions?” Sherlock had asked. His tone had been cautious, they were still feeling their way around this new way of being with each other.

“A treasure hunt.” John had whispered into his ear, savoring the delicate shiver that had run through the lean frame in his arms.

“And what treasure would you have me find?” the rich baritone voice had growled enticingly.

“Yeah, well, I think that would be me.”

Sherlock had given John an hour’s grace to get himself well and truly lost in the teeming masses of London before sending a single text. *The Game, Dr. Watson, is on! SH* and now they were both running through every alley way and by way they could think of, John the prey and Sherlock the eager pursuer. The Doctor had let the Detective catch glimpses of him from time to time then dashed away. It was the most ridiculous game of tag that two grown men could play and they both laughed and giggled with the adrenalin surge and sheer joy the chase gave them.

John paused, looking around for his lover and a street that might take him further through the city, he didn’t have long he knew. Those long, long legs could cover an enormous amount of ground in a short space of time. He also scanned for any sight of the flashing black curls or the sweep of a long coat that would betray Sherlock’s approach. He was almost ready for the chase to be over but not quite, like a good soldier he wanted to choose his ground.

He never got a chance, as it turned out, because when he turned again he crashed directly into Sherlock’s arms. “You shit!” he laughed out loud, scanning over the rough jean jacket and flat cap that had disguised his lover from his eyes. That a whole crowd could see them laughing in each other’s arms bothered John not at all, not any more or ever again.

“You never said I couldn’t employ disguises.” Sherlock murmured his eyes on John’s lips, his eyes bright again with the thrill of drinking in the city that was his natural habitat.

“I’ll remember that.” John took the cap off and ruffled Sherlock’s curls to the way they should look, all over the place and only barely tamed.

“Do.” Sherlock dipped his head to give John a brief but tender kiss. A swelling smile that stretched the luscious lips pulled at John’s own. “Thank you, John.”

“For what……helping you updates your mental maps?”

“For giving London back to me.” Sherlock said it as if John had changed the revolution of the planet. For him, this was the miracle that perhaps the Detective had begged for in the silence of his soul.

John’s cheeks heated as he confessed once and for all “I would give you the world, just for that smile.”  


End file.
